"Young professionals" to infest flats above Iceland

[Stobart Stopper]

What would happen if the title of the thread read "asylum seekers" instead of " young professionals" or Yuppies? It wouldn't happen because it would be offensive.

 

[chegrimandi]

What would happen if the title of the thread read "asylum seekers" instead of " young professionals" or Yuppies? It wouldn't happen because it would be offensive.

not really in the same situation are they asylum seekers and yuppies though.... I don't think yuppies are a very oppressed minority. Their financial/social security should allow them to choke back the tears I reckon....

 

[Bob]

not really in the same situation are they asylum seekers and yuppies though.... I don't think yuppies are a very oppressed minority. Their financial/social security should allow them to choke back the tears I reckon....

I think the point Stobart is trying to make is that demonising people rather than things is generally not a good thing. As Christians would say 'Hate the sin, love the sinner'.

 

[editor]

As Christians would say 'Hate the sin, love the sinner'.

Ooh, I can already hear that tambourine starting up....

 

[IntoStella]

What would happen if the title of the thread read "asylum seekers" instead of " young professionals" or Yuppies? It wouldn't happen because it would be offensive.

There's no comparison. Various people have tried to draw this parallel and it just doesn't hold up. You cannot liken highly privileged, very wealthy conservatives who have the freedom to live -- and holiday -- anywhere they like with people who are desperately poor, stateless and oppressed.

 

[Bob]

Ooh, I can already hear that tambourine starting up....

I was a Catholic alterboy I'll let you know. And my primary school really did have teachers with guitars and tambourines - still makes me feel slightly unwell....

<starts humming kumbaya>

 

[newbie]

I think the point Stobart is trying to make is that demonising people rather than things is generally not a good thing. As Christians would say 'Hate the sin, love the sinner'.

I agree with that, which is why I'm concerned that 'incomer' is seen to keep company with 'yuppie'.

 

[ViolentPanda]

So you'd agree that it's a bit silly labelling everyone moving into a property above a supermarket as "infesting yuppies"?

I try not to use (but don't always succeed) such emotional labels, but | can understand people using them, especially in the context of what is eventually doomed to be a failed attempt to stop the gentrification of Brixton. If you happen to see gentrification as a bad thing, then it's entirely possible that the word "infestation" will seem apt.

You see, I agree with the majority of your post but can't help getting pissed off when people slap up blanket assumptions about the motives and personality of people they've never met just because they're able to afford a none-too glamorous property in Brixton.

You get pissed off, it's human nature. People make blanket assumptions, it's human nature. You can't really tackle the detail of the situation until you've dealt with the generality, which is what the debate on this thread is all about; are "young" and/or "professional" "incomers" to this community a good or a bad thing?
Personally I subscribe to judging people by their deeds, but then unlike Justin and some others on this thread I have the luxury of a secure tenancy in a council property. Something that Justin etc can unfortunately only dream of.

Wow! Is this some sort of anti-yuppie indemnity even if I suddenly strike it rich?!

That would depend on your actions if you were to strike it rich, wouldn't it?

But you're making my point for me: if I just happened to have been moving into those buildings on Electric Avenue, some people here would have already condemned me as a yuppie (or even worse, an "infesting yuppie!"), I'd have to face the full force of Justin's 'resentment' and put up with all the other prejudices posted up here just because I bought a 'pokey' flat!

It's the blanket condemnation that offends me, but that doesn't mean that I don't sincerely wish that those buildings hadn't been put into use for social housing decades ago.

I think you're missing a point. If you were moving from the Lubyanka (whoops, I mean the Barrier Block) to one of those flats, most people who know you in the area would just nod and wish you good luck. Why? Because you'd be freeing up a unit of social housing, so you're actually giving a net benefit to the community.
There is no gaurantee that anyone moving into Tarannau's proverbially piss-scented Iceland flats would be giving the same benefit to the community.
And I too wish that local authorities hadn't had a brake applied to council-owned housing development 20+ years ago. There'd be no need for debates like this.

If the building was turning into a luxury yuppie development a la Atlantic 66 I could get worked up about it. But I find it hard to work up much of a lather over a building that's been empty for twenty years being converted into (for London) cheap flats.

Given the realistic, real world choice of it remaining empty and rotting away (like some other Elec Avenue buildings) and being put to so some less-than-ideal use, I'd prefer the latter.

Although - to repeat - I'd rather it be put to community/social use. But that, sadly, wasn't an option and there's nothing I could do about that.

The problem with the "Iceland development" is that we don't actually know whether the housing is going to be "pokey" or "spacious", accessible or inaccessible, we're just making assumptions based on narrow data. Knowing a few of the tricks developers have been known to pull, we can't even assume that the approved specifications are those that will actually get built.

 

[dogmatique]

highly privileged, very wealthy conservatives who have the freedom to live -- and holiday -- anywhere they like

So this describes everyone in the sweepingly inclusive term "young professional" does it?

 

[ViolentPanda]

I agree with that, which is why I'm concerned that 'incomer' is seen to keep company with 'yuppie'.

Why? "Incomer" is a valid and accurate description of a person entering (or "coming in") to a community.

 

[editor]

That would depend on your actions if you were to strike it rich, wouldn't it?

Oh, I've turned down enough big money in the past to know that I'm unlikely to change!

 

[kea]

Oh, I've turned down enough big money in the past to know that I'm unlikely to change!

what about if someone who posts on this board were to die and leave you their entire, massive, estate?

 

[newbie]

If you were moving from the Lubyanka (whoops, I mean the Barrier Block) to one of those flats, most people who know you in the area would just nod and wish you good luck.

There is some difference between people moving within an area (who already have network they belong to and aren't incomers at all); people moving into an area where they already have contacts &/or reasons to be; those who are allocated into a place by some bureaucratic process; and people who simply pluck an area out of the Standard. But at some point in our lives haven't most of us been in all those groups?

 

[newbie]

Why? "Incomer" is a valid and accurate description of a person entering (or "coming in") to a community.

So I thought, but DB bracketed with yuppie as a stereotype.

 

[tarannau]

There's no comparison. Various people have tried to draw this parallel and it just doesn't hold up. You cannot liken highly privileged, very wealthy conservatives who have the freedom to live -- and holiday -- anywhere they like with people who are desperately poor, stateless and oppressed.

Just to bring it back to the initial subject of this thread, the idea of 'infesting' yups/yuppies possibly purchasing some flats above Iceland. Is everyone who purchases these flats likely to be a 'very wealthy conservative' with the freedom to live and holiday where they like? It seems unlikely to me.

I can't say I have any sympathy for the 80s stereotype of the arrogant Porsche driving yuppie, but this situation seems far removed from that. Equally, with young professional and yuppie becoming roughly eqivalent during much of this discussion, there seems a real need for a middle ground state between yuppie/young professional' and 'desperately poor' folks.

I suspect that most of us, in some way, were capable of being classed as a 'young professionals' once.

 

[detective-boy]

Why? "Incomer" is a valid and accurate description of a person entering (or "coming in") to a community.

I think you'll find that it is used perjoratively in some communities far more rural than Brixton

 

[ViolentPanda]

I have lived in Battersea for 20 years & all my old neighbours who moved on were not in any way "edged out" - they made a killing on small 2-bed terraced houses they had bought some time ago, probably cheaply, & moved further out to the "suburbs" & to bigger properties - with proper gardens & more bedrooms - BECAUSE THEY WANTED TO and not because they were forced out by property developers. I would say this is typical of any inner London gentrified area.

I lived at several addresses in Battersea during my childhood (the High Street, Vicarage Crescent and others), I also went to school there starting in 1973, and I know plenty of people who lived in private rental flats and houses who were edged out by their landlords' desire to turn a quick buck. Forgive me for saying so, but by 1984-85 (your putative date of arrival) Battersea was already "under siege" from gentrification. I watched it start happening in the late 70s and I do know what I'm talking about from bitter experience.

I don't think it is the old communities who are edged out - but it is definitely the case that the many of children of older inhabitants cannot afford to live in places like Battersea, Brixton or Hoxton. Rather than old communities being edged out, it's more a case that their offspring (and other working class people) are priced out.
The latter does of course amount to a demographic change, often not for the better, but I do think it's largely a myth that long-standing inhabitants are forced out of areas to make way for wealthy incomers.

You are of course at liberty to believe what you wish.

 

[IntoStella]

So this describes everyone in the sweepingly inclusive term "young professional" does it?

If you are insisting, as some have, on making a comparison with asylum seekers, then yes. Compared with asylum seekers they are extremely wealthy and privileged and have undreamt-of freedoms.

 

[tarannau]

If you are insisting, as some have, on making a comparison with asylum seekers, then yes. Compared with asylum seekers they are extremely wealthy and privileged and have undreamt-of freedoms.

Really? The average 'young professional' is likely to come out of education with a heap of debt (less money than the asylum seeker) and the likelihood that most of them will never earn enough money to both pay rent and save a deposit. At least they can work I guess, but I suspect that's not an 'undreamt-of-freedom' for that many.

 

[Relahni]

Young professionals chose to live in Brixton shocker!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

When I lived in Brixton in 1997 - it was good. We ran tings!

Round about then young professionals moved into our street - they were paying around £150 more than us, a week, to live there!

A lot has changed since then.

Bermondsey is where it is at now! Brixton is so 1990s! ha ha ha....

 

[Donna Ferentes]

Just to bring it back to the initial subject of this thread, the idea of 'infesting' yups/yuppies possibly purchasing some flats above Iceland. Is everyone who purchases these flats likely to be a 'very wealthy conservative' with the freedom to live and holiday where they like? It seems unlikely to me.

I can't say I have any sympathy for the 80s stereotype of the arrogant Porsche driving yuppie, but this situation seems far removed from that. Equally, with young professional and yuppie becoming roughly eqivalent during much of this discussion, there seems a real need for a middle ground state between yuppie/young professional' and 'desperately poor' folks.

On your latter point, I agree. However, any attempt to form a suitable description is likely to founder on the rock presented by your first paragraph, to wit that any group description will inevitably be met by somebody saying, pace dogmatique, "does that apply to everybody?". I wonder how useful it is to object to generalisations on the basis that they do not apply to everybody.

The average 'young professional' is likely to come out of education with a heap of debt (less money than the asylum seeker) and the likelihood that most of them will never earn enough money to both pay rent and save a deposit. At least they can work I guess, but I suspect that's not an 'undreamt-of-freedom' for that many.

This is undoubtedly so. The amount new graduates seem to owe these days is shocking. (Our recent library assistant owed eleven grand. When I graduated the first time in 1986, I owed four hundred and fifty quid.) However, by your own admission, these are people hardly likely to be signing up for Chateau Iceland.

 

[hayduke]

The following planning application is before Lambeth planning committee tomorrow...

Did anyone actually go to the committee meeting?

 

[tarannau]

On your latter point, I agree. However, any attempt to form a suitable description is likely to founder on the rock presented by your first paragraph, to wit that any group description will inevitably be met by somebody saying, pace dogmatique, "does that apply to everybody?". I wonder how useful it is to object to generalisations on the basis that they do not apply to everybody.

I don't disagree that generalisations can't encompass every single individual .

Trouble is, I don't believe that the 'yuppie' term has been used as a particularly effective, helpful or accurate generalisation on this thread. It seems to have been based upon 80s Harry Enfield 'yah' stereotypes rather than the reality of the situation - it's a dated parody rather than an effective generalisation. And now folks are even widening the net, substituting 'Young Professionals' for 'Yuppies' - it's hardly unusual that such a forced and often repeated generalisation isn't holding up so well.

 

[Donna Ferentes]

"Young professionals" isn't such an inaccurate term for people who can afford one-bedroom flats in Brixton and are likely to move into them. I'd have thought it as adequate as any other.

 

[tarannau]

"Young professionals" isn't such an inaccurate term for people who can afford one-bedroom flats in Brixton and are likely to move into them. I'd have thought it as adequate as any other.

What if they can only afford a one-bedroom flat in East Molesey? Are they a young not-so-professional? Or Quite-Professional perhaps.

Isn't the term just shorthand for someone fairly young and in employment, arguably in a white-collar profession?

 

[Donna Ferentes]

What if they can only afford a one-bedroom flat in East Molesey? Are they a young not-so-professional? Or Quite-Professional perhaps.

I think we're back to the value of asking generaliastions not to be generalisations.

Isn't the term just shorthand for someone fairly young and in employment, arguably in a white-collar profession?

Yes, but I think without the "arguably" and with the added characteristics of good (and rising) salary and career prospects. The sort of person who can reasonably expect to "do well" (God, haven't heard or used that phrase in ages) and be very comfortable by the time they're, er, about my age.

 

[ViolentPanda]

I think you'll find that it is used perjoratively in some communities far more rural than Brixton

Oh, I know. Although I have to say it's only "incomers" 4 and 5 generations ago that actually made my paternal family line deviate from it's "normal for Norfolk" straight-line family tree of Norwich City supporters.

I actually thnk that rural communities probably feel they have more "right" to use perjorative terms, given that the type of social flux they experience tends to be a lot slower than urban social flux, so that they're a lot less habituated to it.

 

[newbie]

I think you'll find that it is used perjoratively in some communities far more rural than Brixton

Is it? I guess almost any term can be used perjoratively by someone but is it generally understood in a negative light- as with 'blowin' for example? What term is inclusive and not seen as perjorative by anyone?

 

[Pickman's model]

Mike: I believe did you not once produce t-shirts that said anger was an energy?

perchance a quote from pil's single "rise", released c. 1986.

though i doubt the phrase was coined by john lydon.

 

[IntoStella]

perchance a quote from pil's single "rise", released c. 1986.

though i doubt the phrase was coined by john lydon.

I wonder what John Lydon thinks of yuppies.